I am inspired to today to write a story, a corona virus story. My corona virus story, so far. Thanks to Karla Sullivan for the inspiration and prodding necessary to jump start that inspiration. I take my cue from her article on National Stress Month.
Fitting, right? She thought so, and so do I. We are in week four (or is it five?) of sheltering at home in Illinois, sequestering ourselves away from the viral outbreak that creeps like exponential statistics across the globe, a hidden threat that remains as a much a mystery as God.
Not that we don’t know a lot about it by now. We have clues to its origin. We certainly know the effects it has on people, some mild and annoying, some deadly and terrifying.
This novel virus emerges into a world filled with fake news, conspiracy theories, short presidential tirades (tweets) and unrelenting social media. It’s April, and we’ve had inches of snow twice in the last several days. People are talking apocalyptic (a little less tongue in cheek than usual).
Most of my story is internal, the thoughts (and recently feelings) of living through a worldwide pandemic in what seems like quasi-apocryphal social isolation.
Sy Garte grew up in an atheist household. His ancestors for generations were atheists. His lateral relatives were atheists, and the people close to him in his life were atheists. He assumed atheism was normal. He didn’t question atheism or materialism as the basic assumptions of his life.
Sy Garte earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry and BS in Chemistry from the City University of New York. He has been a Professor of Public Health and Environmental Health Sciences at New York University, Rutgers University, and the University of Pittsburgh. He has written over 200 scientific publications in genetics, molecular epidemiology, cancer research and other areas, and he is the author of five books, and numerous articles published in Perspectives in Science and Christian Faith (PSCF) and God and Nature. He is retired from a senior administrative position at the National Institute of Health. (See his biography at Biologos)
Wait a minute… articles on science and Christian faith?
He was an atheist and a scientist. So, what happened?
Well, Dr. Sy Garte has written a book about “what happened” – The Works of His Hands: A Scientist’s Journey from Atheism to Faith. I recommend the book, though this article more closely follows the interview embedded below, and it’s a pretty interesting story. I also added an interview of Sy Garte hosted by a once professed Christian turned hardcore atheist (the kind who isn’t content to allow other people to remain Christians) for an interesting exchange from two people who switched poles in their beliefs.
Nothing is normal about these times right now. Daily case totals and death tolls are front of mind, reminding us of the tenuous uncertainty of life. Though people may question the significance of the numbers, compared to cases and death tolls from the flu, for instance, the preoccupation of the world with this global pandemic labeled COVID-19 is a daily reminder of our own mortality.
Someone speaking of personal experience in World War I remarked, “There are no atheists in the trenches of Europe.” The same idea was echoed in World War II: “There are no atheists in foxholes.” Indeed, Impossible times and situations that snap us out of our comfortable mundane existence have that kind of effect on us.
I doubt that it’s true )that there are no atheists in foxholes). As a generalization, though, there is some kernel of truth there. Many a person who has no interest in God, turns to God in times like these.
YouVersion, the maker of a downloadable Bible app, recently reported on April 15, 2020, historic numbers of people accessing their app, the largest increase in engagement with their app in the last 6 weeks during this time of worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. A record 1.6 million prayers were added in just one month. They claim the pandemic has triggered a virtual spiritual awakening.
The app tracks downloads. When I first checked it, I saw it had been downloaded 421,462,195 times. I started writing this piece a day ago, and I am just getting back to it now. Not quite 24 hours later, the app has been downloaded 421,546, 815 times. That’s an increase of almost 85,000 in less than 24 hours!
With the spike in downloads of just one Bible app (among many), it seems that people really are turning to Scripture in this time of crisis and difficulty.
That leads me to wonder: when the crisis blows over, will people go back to their “normal” lives? Will the new normal include daily Bible reading, prayer and meditation?
I have come to realize God meets people where they are.
When I was growing up, the concept of “finding yourself” was a popular idea. I thought I needed to go out into the world to find myself, and that’s what I did. I launched myself on that journey, even before I left high school, reading poetry, philosophy, literature – anything that seemed to have some hint of a claim on truth.
I remember the old adage that the wind can’t carry a ship at anchor, or a ship at anchor can’t be steered (or something like that). That idea became a guiding principal, and I have given that guidance to my children. You have to get up and move, even if you don’t know precisely where you are going. (That’s what Abraham did when God called Him to go to a land God would show him.)
I think it’s generally good advice. It has held me in good stead. If we wait around for the perfect opportunity to come our way, it may never come. We even find wisdom along those lines in Proverbs:
The mind of a man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.
Proverbs 16:9 (NASB)
When I set out to search for truth as a young adult who had squandered his teenage years in reckless drinking, drug use and risky behavior, I thought the truth was “out there”. I just had to go search for it and find it.
In more recent generations, the conventional wisdom might run along the line of finding the truth within. Oprah Winfrey and other popular prophets of modern wisdom would say we don’t need to go searching for the truth “out there” because the truth is inside us.
In my latter days now, as a journeyer who moves a bit slower, I have come to see things a bit differently. Neither paradigm rings completely true. I think we can find truth “out there”, and we can find truth “within”, but truth is not limited to any one “place”. Truth is part of the fabric of reality of the world God created.
I certainly don’t want to make light of the search! The search is critical. We have to want “it”. We need to orientate our hearts toward finding “it”. We need to value the truth for its own sake and be willing to let go of anything that runs counter to it – even if we don’t like it, even if the truth doesn’t look all that attractive to us – even if the truth is hard to accept.
At the same time, truth isn’t necessarily “out there”, and it isn’t “within” either. I am (you are) not the arbiters of truth. “My truth” doesn’t mean anything in the face of reality. We don’t talk about “my scientific truth”, and we shouldn’t talk about “my spiritual truth” – if we are really interested in truth at all.
People say, “I found God”. I used to say that too, but the words always sounded a bit off as they stumbled from my lips. Sometimes, we can’t find exactly the rights words to say what we mean, so we settle for the only words we can find. I think I have better idea about these things, now, than I once had.
Mary Magdalene, Mary, & Salom walking up to the bright empty tomb of Jesus Christ early Sunday morning
Three days and two night ago, Mary’s entire world came crashing down. The earth opened up and swallowed Jesus, whom Mary loved, into the abyss. Mary’s world was thrown into darkness and confusion, leaving only soul crushing grief, bewilderment, and emptiness.
She barely had enough time to get him down from that tree on which he had died. A very generous leader risked his life and reputation to help her with the body and prepare the body properly for burial before Sabbath began. (John 19:42)
The crash of his arrest and the whirl of those events that followed came upon her in a rushing torrent so quickly that she was completely overwhelmed, reeling, barely able to breath from beginning to end, and they ended with his death. The commotion of the last minute burial gave way to the silent weight of yawning emptiness and overwhelming grief in the dark night that followed.
All the men abandoned Jesus as the world began to unravel. The petty squabbling that broke up dinner the night before left Mary confused about what Jesus had been saying. Jesus was trying to tell them something important, but she could only remember bits and pieces….
Something about a cup… and pouring out his blood and…. It was all so surreal and confusing. So impossible to fathom. Jesus seemed to know what was going to happen. She could see it in his eyes. He was resigned to it, but she didn’t understand.
All the mysterious things Jesus said during the exciting and hopeful years they traveled with the Jesus played in her mind like a long, beautiful song ending in a discordant whimper. The mystery that seemed so poignant and momentous now seemed ominously empty. Through the looming darkness, a slight flame of hope sputtered amid the whirlwind of elements around her.
Jesus wouldn’t let anyone try to defend him. “He just gave himself up!” she thought. He utterly gave himself over to them. It was painful to watch, and painful to remember.
But even in his weakness he was noble. He was so beautiful. He seemed like everything they thought he was. Even in the end. Even as he resigned himself to death. She wept.
And those men were always arguing about who was the greatest. They didn’t do anything. They couldn’t even stay awake with him and pray. They were too dull to realize Jesus needed them!
They could have, at least, gone with him! But, they left him. They knew what was happening, but they pretended not to know! they didn’t lift a finger. When Jesus needed them most, they abandoned him. Peter even claimed he didn’t know Jesus! Peter!
Mary and the other women would not leave him. They saw the whole, unimaginable thing … and John. At least, John was there. Not that he did anything.
If it wasn’t for Joseph, who knows where his body would have ended up. Mary was grateful that Joseph owned a tomb nearby and even more grateful that Joseph and his associates helped with the body. (Luke 23:50-53). Even so, Mary couldn’t help but wonder where they were when Jesus needed someone. Anyone!
Even as she felt her heart shrink in anger and frustration, she knew they could not have stopped what happened. She softened, and she wept again.
They had no time to prepare him properly. It was the Sabbath, and night was upon them. The hours labored by. It seemed like Jesus lay there for an eternity through the night. Everything weighed so heavily on Mary’s heart. She needed to get to him.
Joseph and Nicodemus came through with the spices and ointments for Mary to prepare the body in the morning. (Luke 23:56) She was up before the dawn. She couldn’t sleep anyway.
The hopeful sounds that emerge in light’s first dawn might have lifted her heart on any other morning. Tears came in waves. She could hardly see at times.
Tears she could not manage to wipe way with the back of her hands fell from her cheeks into the mixture of ointment and spices. She recalled the day she wiped tears from his feet with her hair in waves of repentant gratitude and joy, knowing her sins were forgiven, and her life was forever changed.
Her tears turned to waves of incontrollable sobs. She could not continue until they subsided.
Mary could not adequately express the depth of gratitude for Jesus for rescuing her from the demons that haunted and tormented her from her youth. She didn’t care what anyone thought.
Nothing had been more precious to her than the ointments she collected… until Jesus set her free. She would have spent her entire life pouring her very self out for him.
She desperately longed to wind time back. The impossibility of it all was maddening. Those demons lurked again in the back of her mind. She shuddered as if to shake them off, and she continued with the ointment and spices.
Navigating by Faith 